Elevate Kids

Background Statement

Essential Information

Elevate Kids is a 501(c)(3) located in Grand Junction, CO

Elevate Kids was founded on July 16, 2021 by Doug and Melinda McCaw to help raise funds to help kids in the Grand Junction community. We serve kids in our community by providing necessary nutrition, education and family activities.

Programs:

- Annual Fun Run Fundraiser

- Crazy endurance runs by the founders to raise money and awareness

Our position and role in the community:

How we are unique:

We are unique in that we raise funds that we then donate to non-profits that support our mission to elevate kids lives. The other part about us that is unique is how we raise funds. We raise funds by participating in crazy physical goals like trail running the entire 490-mile Colorado Trail and getting people to donate or pledge per mile.

Most notable achievements:

- Our first year of putting on the Elevate Kids Fun Run we had 255 participant registrations

- Our second year of putting on the Elevate Kids Fun Run we grew participation by 40% with 351 participant registrations

- Doug and Melinda McCaw ran the 490-mile Colorado Trail in 18 consecutive days to raise funds for Elevate Kids and kick off this project.

- We created a documentary movie for that initial Colorado Trail run and used it to raise additional funds for kids

Brief summary of the need statement:

We need sponsors for our events such as the fun run, our trail runs and documentary movies.

Financial information including overall budget and annual donations. Past and current funding from other sources.

Brief statement about our board, staff and volunteers.

We have an active 7-member board made up of community volunteers. We have an intern on staff helping with our marketing needs. We do have a volunteer committee that helps to plan and implement all that goes into putting on the Fun Run. At events we have community volunteers to put on the events.

Creation Story

Elevate Kids was established as a 501(c)(3) organization in 2022 after Doug and Melinda McCaw ran the 490-mile Colorado Trail in 2020 to raise funds to support kids in the Grand Junction area. The couple used the trail run to raise awareness and funds at the same time. Not only did they run the trail, they also filmed the run creating a documentary of the run and used the film to raise even more funds for kids. Later the idea to start a fun run locally as a fundraiser was born.

The mission of Elevate Kids is to activate kids’ minds, bodies and spirit by raising funds and supporting organizations that help facilitate this mission.

Our organizations activities:

We operate a nonprofit organization governed by an active 7-member volunteer board of directors, including the two founders. We offer fundraising opportunities to our community and then donate proceeds from our events to nonprofit organizations that facilitate our mission of helping kids.

Events include:

- Annual Fun Run

- Endurance challenges that the founder’s participate in to raise money

- Documentary movies of the endurance challenges that are used to raise funds

Testimonials from organizations we’ve had an impact on:

Elevate Kids' fun run was an awesome experience to support our 4th grade PBL in getting our students and community more active. Tope Track club students, staff and families trained throughout the spring to run a 5K. We believe it was a win-win, promoting physical activity in our youth as well as supporting our community.

We plan to use the $1000.00 Elevate Kids awarded Tope to update our old climbing wall and make it more K-5th grade ability friendly.

Thank you,

Tope Track Stars

STEAM @ Tope Elementary

Elevate Kids has been a great supporter of Kids Aid. We are thankful to have a community partner that is also committed to kids in this valley. Elevate Kids just helped Kids Aid feed 2,125 kids for a weekend with their most recent donation. We are very grateful!

Tessa Kaiser

Executive Director

Kids Aid